No gloomier Orcus swallows thee
Than the unclouded sunset’s glow;
Thine is at least Elysian woe;
Thou hast Good’s natural decay,
And fadest like a star away 80
Into an atmosphere whose shine
With fuller day o’ermasters thine,
Entering defeat as ’t were a shrine;
For us,—­we turn life’s diary o’er
To find but one word,—­Nevermore.

SHE CAME AND WENT

As a twig trembles, which a bird
  Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;—­
  I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
  The blue dome’s measureless content,—­
So my soul held, that moment’s heaven;—­
  I only know she came and went.

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps
  The orchards full of bloom and scent,
So clove her May my wintry sleeps;—­
  I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,
  Through the low doorway of my tent;
The tent is struck, the vision stays;—­
  I only know she came and went

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
  And life’s last oil is nearly spent,
One gush of light these eyes will brim,
  Only to think she came and went.

THE CHANGELING

I had a little daughter,
  And she was given to me
To lead me gently backward
  To the Heavenly Father’s knee,
That I, by the force of nature. 
  Might in some dim wise divine
The depth of his infinite patience
  To this wayward soul of mine.

I know not how others saw her,
  But to me she was wholly fair,
And the light of the heaven she came from
  Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,
  And as many changes took,
As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples
  On the yellow bed of a brook.

To what can I liken her smiling
  Upon me, her kneeling lover,
How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
  And dimpled her wholly over,
Till her outstretched hands smiled also,
  And I almost seemed to see
The very heart of her mother
  Sending sun through her veins to me!

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
  And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
  Stole my little daughter away;
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari
  But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage-door. 
  My little bird used her wings.

But they left in her stead a changeling
  A little angel child,
That seems like her bud in full blossom,
  And smiles as she never smiled: 
When I wake in the morning, I see it
  Where she always used to lie,
And I feel as weak as a violet
  Alone ’neath the awful sky.

As weak, yet as trustful also;
  For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful Nature
  Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
  Rain falls, suns rise and set,
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
  A poor little violet.